~ Musings on weather and science

El Niño finally arrives… But Don’t Get Too Excited.

While we won’t get to record temperature levels, the weekend is definitely shaping up to be spring-like with warmer than average days and cool nights. A strong ridge of high pressure has planted itself directly on top of western Nevada, and won’t move out before the middle of next week. High temperatures will reach the upper 60s to the low 70s through Tuesday, before a weak cold front moves in.

Well, it’s been out there taunting us all winter, but it now appears that El Niño is finally happened in the Pacific. Now before you all start popping champagne corks and celebrate the end of the drought, let me say that very little has changed. The Pacific Temperature profile has essentially on the edge of an El Niño condition for months, and the line it just crossed is pretty thin… in other words, you’d be hard pressed to find a significant difference from the way things have been for most of the winter. But perhaps even more significant, for us here in western Nevada, a weak El Niño is as likely to bring us dry conditions as wet, so it really doesn’t improve our outlook any.